CHUR, SWITZERLAND – Who would expect that two European low-cost airlines would have some of the youngest aircraft in the world? As millions of people head to the airport to go on summer vacation, ch-aviation has crunched the numbers to find out who has the world's youngest fleet.
In first place is Norwegian UK, taking out the title of world's youngest fleet. The average age of a Norwegian UK plane is just under one year. Rounding out the rest of the world's top five – all with an average fleet age of less than two years – are Colorful Guizhou Airlines and Loong Air from China, Germany's Eurowings, and Swiss Global Air Lines.
"What our data clearly shows is the tremendous growth in Europe and Asia over the past few years while they move to lower-cost models," said Thomas Jaeger, ch-aviation CEO. "And Chinese start-ups have the benefit of good access to capital for new aircraft."
The bottom five was quite a different story, with Africa and North America doing battle for the oldest fleets. In bottom position is Kenya's Fly SAX with an average aircraft age of 36 years old, followed by Nolinor Aviation (Canada), African Express Airways (Kenya), Western Air Bahamas, and Pacific Coastal Airlines (Canada).
"Obviously we see something quite different in Canada and Kenya, which both have a lot of smaller carriers operating in remote areas," Jaeger says. "And many African airlines which want to expand simply don't have the cash for brand new aircraft."
Taking out top spots for youngest fleet on each continent were:
- Africa – RwandAir;
- Asia – Colorful Guizhou Airlines;
- Europe – Norwegian UK;
- Northern America – WestJet Encore;
- Oceania – Air Tahiti;
- South America – Conviasa.
